Years ago (it seems like a lifetime according to “Internet Age”), I wrote some articles about optimizing websites for search engines. This was back in the day when there were several different search engines vying to be everyone’s search tool of choice. If you remember the likes of  Hotbot, Lycos, Webcrawler, InfoSeek and then Altavista popping up on the scene, you’ll probably recognize the era that I’m talking about. I know that these articles were written pre-2K – they have an address and phone number on them that I have not used since then.

Some things in internal SEO have changed since then. For example, one of the bits of advice I gave back then was in regard to having good meta keyword tags.  Back then, I wrote,

“This used to assist a page’s standings, however most search engines have adjusted their Meta keyword tag relevancy and some will actually penalize a page that has too many instances of the same keyword repeated over and over.”

At the time, keywords in the metatags were important to search engines, however they had built algorithms to detect “spammy” overuse of this tag. Today, meta keyword tags are almost totally unnecessary and for the past part, no one should waste any time on them.  Another bit of advice that I gave back in the day was to avoid the use of Javascript as much as possible. Back then, it could be shown that the major search engines went through a period where they were looking at the source of html pages and placing the most importance on the text found on the first part of the page. Today, we know that Google does an excellent job of indexing all of the text on a web page and Javascript is not really a problem as far as SEO is concerned.

So what hasn’t changed? Several things. While keyword metatags are virtually ignored, the same advice I provided 12 years ago in regard to useful and unique Title and Description tags still stands. In fact, if you have a website, you are well advised to get a Google Account and use their webmaster tools. Google will report on pages on your site that have the same Title tags and report that this is an error. You want each and every web page to have it’s own unique Title. As well, you should craft this Title carefully – far too many websites have Titles such as ‘Home Page’, “Page 1′, ‘Page 2′, etc. instead of a Title that accurately reflects what the webpage is about.

As well, Description metatags are still very important. Although it has been well known for a long time that the meta description tag does not have much bearing on search engine rankings (although there is some dispute on this – it might have a very minor bearing in some cases according to our observations), the description metatag is often what is presented to searchers in the search engine pages. What you have here might be the difference between someone clicking on the link in the search results or reading further and checking out someone else’s pages that come up on that search query.

Over the past decade, many things have changed while much has stayed the same. Content is still King when it comes to SEO – without good content, it doesn’t really matter what other efforts you put in to your site. Even if you have fantastic external SEO, if when a searcher comes to your site and does not get what they are looking for, they are going to move on.

Some things have never changed while there are many changes that take someone that is truly interested in the subject to keep on top of. I’m often in discussions with others who believe certain myths about SEO – perhaps it was something they learned at a seminar back in 1999 – and they believe it still holds true today.  While some of the basics are still the basics, Search engine optimization and marketing on the internet is an ever changing media and you need to ensure that what you have believed for years still holds true to be successful.

Ten years ago, did you think that mobile search would be influencing your design and marketing strategies? Ten years from now, will what you know and believe still hold true as far as successful strategies? Is it time to get a second opinion on how much potential your present strategies have and what adjustments you might be able to make to take advantage of the changes that are.. well.. constantly changing?  Would you prefer to work on your business, or keep up with search engine and marketing strategies?

Give me a call if you’d like a second opinion and we can discuss some things that you might not have even heard of that might help your business! I can be reached at (519) 940-3504.